To The Batmobile! The Lost Csl…

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Hard mechanical, analogue sounds are all around me. Compressed air pumps through a windy gun somewhere nearby as wheel nuts are driven off their threads at speed. The whir and chirrup as they are released is about as modern as it gets here in the pits at the Le Mans Classic. The cars competing are from a bygone age, a time when computers occupied rooms, not desks and you didn’t have a cigarette break, you sparked up and carried on working.

Fuel pumps hum, tick, tick, tick, solenoids engaging, headlights taking a split second to illuminate when asked, a yellowish tinge to their hue showing origins in an age bereft of Xenon.

The clouds above us have been threatening violence for a couple of hours, dark and loaded full of the wet stuff, the patter of the first drops filters in with the mechanical symphony around me.

Voices in numerous different languages bounce around the pit, harshly split and shattered as engines fire up, startling us like eyes appearing in the darkness around an innocent campfire. The hairs on my arm’s vibrate and dance as my senses come to attention.

Wearing just a T shirt, the pea-sized drops of rain that suddenly fall like a curtain soak me in one sweep. Spectators and pit crew run for cover… Not the cars though, they’ve been called, so they emerge and make their way through the pit and out on to the historic Le Mans track.

The chequered flag waits for no man or woman. With six different era of grids coming out for three different hour long races over the course of the twenty four hour long, revival style event.

The action is relentless whatever the weather…

Day or night.

From any angle.

It can be hard to keep up with the pace. Stealing a couple of minutes shut eye just metres from a noisy circuit is easy when you’re this tired.

And for some it can be all too much… Even here at the top of the severely steep pitside grandstand. As the sound echoes and bounces up at us.

But in amongst the throng of the pits, there lies something special, very special.

This is only the third time Tony Walker has come out to play in his Bat Wing CSL. Incredibly the Gosser beer liveried BMW lived in a barn for fifteen years, thousands of miles away in Indonesia. But that was back in the 80s, a whole world away from today and the journey it’s been on during its life.

What you’re looking at here is one of four 3.5litre CSL’s built by the factory in 1976. Of those only three survive and two run. One is not used as it’s an original Art Car and stays with BMW under cover and Tony’s CSL is the only 1976 car with its original engine fitted.

In the midst of the formidable Le Mans Classic pit, it would be all too easy to pass the Gosser car by. Flanked by Martini liveried CSL’s, the universally recognised colours make the big green filling of the white bread sandwich stand out. Which of course makes us more interested.

Tony (on the right) is fascinating to talk to, a hugely experienced rally driver who has campaigned for the Nissan works team amongst others. We pictured his 240RS in 2009 at Goodwood. Incredibly he has owned that car since new and hopefully we’ll be able to show you more of his collection at a later date.

Back to the CSL, it started its journey as the works Schnitzer car for the World Championship in 1976, being officially entered as BMW Motorsport GmBH – Schnitzer. It competed at all the rounds that year, with results as follows…

LeMans – DNF while 8th overall – Quester/Grohs

ADAC 1000 km – 1st Quester/Krebs/Peltier

Oesterreich 1000 km – 1st Quester/Nilsson

Watkins Glen 6-hours – 5th Peterson/Quester

Dijon 6-hours – 6th Quester/Krebs/Peterson

This made it the highest placed BMW, with Porsche winning the championship overall. We don’t have exact figures, but as Tony says, “Porsche made far more cars.”

At the end of the season it was sold to the Memphis Racing Team and with a change of colour scheme it was pressed into action, competing in the German Championship. Now of course when motorsport is wrapping up in Europe for the winter hibernation, things are literally warming up in the southern hemisphere.

So when a group of Indonesians came to Germany looking to buy a turn-key race car at the end the 1977 season, the Bat Wing found itself being airfreighted south. Then in December of that year it won the Indonesian GP held at Jakarta.

For 1978 it stayed in Indonesia and wore the livery of Bentol cigarettes, Tony explains what happened next, “Its engine was damaged by cracking the oil pan (fortunately it seized and didn’t blow) at a race on the Jakarta track. It was then placed in a timber shed immediately after the race and never used or seen again, until I was shown the car.”

So how the hell do you find a Bat Wing CSL in Jakarta Tony? “I lived there for eighteen years, so I knew people as I was racing and rallying the entire time. Some friends took me to an old shed to show me what they thought was an interesting road car, it wasn’t that interesting at all… Then I saw the BMW that they thought was a rubbishy old race car, but they knew the person that owned it.”

Tony quickly realised the significance of the BMW. This was in the early 90s, so it had been parked up for well over a decade by this time. Just long enough in fact, as he explains, “If race cars stay in Europe they’re modified, updated and changed, in Asia there’s not that little sub culture of motorsport that exists over here. So it saved the BMW, that’s why it’s such a time warp car because they just dumped it and moved on.”

We all dream of walking in to ‘that’ barn, so how did it feel when you unearthed such an incredible race car? “It was a feeling of absolute disbelief, it was a complete unknown I stumbled upon. It was only after that point I started asking people in the race community there if they remembered a big BMW?”

It turns out many did, and in 1994 after a few years of convincing the owner to part with the BMW Tony sealed the deal and shipped the CSL back to Europe for a full nut and bolt rebuild. Conceding that there was no way such a job could be undertaken over there.

Everything was there, but all of the magnesium parts had turned to powder in the humid Indonesian climate. Still, they probably would have needed replacing regardless due to degradation. Tony saying of the restoration process, “My car is 100% original, it had never been modified or changed from the 1976 spec other than two colour changes in 1977 before I restored the car. Alex Elliott of Roundel Racing in the UK proved invaluable, his work is incredible. Even all body panels are from the 1976 car and only the front spoiler is a remanufactured item as when the sump cracked in 1978 in Asia it was due to curb hopping, the spoiler being smashed before the sump was hit by same curb.”

The restoration took six or seven years and the CSL didn’t see the track again until Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2006. It then came to Le Mans Classic in 2008 and now again in 2012. Aside from that it’s been parked up in preference of Tony’s collection of rally cars.

The BMW is magnificent, as Tony says of his find, “At the time it wasn’t one of those cars that had gone down in folklore, it was just simply forgotten. In fact when it came back to the UK, BMW Germany came over to inspect it as it had been lost from their records.”

Here today the 470 bhp generated by the six cylinder 24 valve engine is being harnessed by Tony and his co-drivers, Alan Benjamin and Frank Kovacevic from the States.

The team performed fantastically, Tony saying, “We would have been well inside the top 10 in the Performance Index had we not had battery problems in the last race while myself and AB were driving. That cost us three laps.”

The team being interviewed here for Motors TV as part of their coverage of the event.

The battery problem was a thrown alternator belt, driven by the back axle, the team had to swap in a fresh battery and hope it lasted.

Problems aside Tony’s discovery still keeps him captivated, even with limited use. As he says, “My interest is in rallying rather than racing, but when I saw that car I recognised it as a truly gorgeous car. It rocked my soul… I think the Grp 5 period, the big arched time was an amazing period. It’s natural for me to like saloon cars as I like rallying. But this is something else, an iconic era.”

“I do enjoy racing and although I prefer rallying… Ironically the Batmobile is my favourite, then the Audi Quattro next. The RS I had great times with, but as a thing to have in your garage… You can hardly compare it to the BMW can you?”

……..

Bryn Musselwhite

Footnote : If you have any knowledge of the car when it was in its Bentol Cigarettes livery of dark blue with white stripe please get in contact with us as Tony would love to know more of its time in Indonesia.

Honestly am looking for this car in Indonesia for the last 15 years of my life. I have so many story about where the car is but never found the truth about it. Finally i saw this and thank you very much about everything about the story it made my story journey finish.

My father best friend is the one who came to BMW Germany that Bought that car and That Car is Flies in the same Plane with him on the way back to Jakarta.

When the car landed, the next weekend the car won the race in Ancol Circuit and yes the car park after the engine broke 2 years later.

Just 3 days ago i still looking for Anthony Walker Contact to ask about this car. But since its been a while, nobody has it. He is a friend of my father who use to be a racer and organizer in indonesian racing and Indonesia World Rally Championship.

Please Send my regards to Him and please contact me back on my twitter @rifato

"Incredibly the Gosser beer liveried BMW lived in a barn for fifteen years, thousands of miles away in Indonesia." INDONESIA? That's my country! Where is the exact location of the barn? It's a shame that I don't realize it until I read this post.

Thank you Bryn.
Thank you very much indeed!
This is exactly the kind of writing I love to come across... I should have been at LMC this year, but last minute work proved my undoing and I had to cancel my trip... Reading your piece makes me feel like I was actually there. I love these stories of forgotten cars which are one day found again, sorted, and then put back on the road for all to appreciate.
A big big thank you also to its current owner for bringing it back out of hiding and giving the car its due.
I would love a follow up piece on its time in jakarta when / if you find more info & pics of its time out there - including pics of the timber shed Tony found it in...
Amazing stuff!
-e

This post puts a nostalgic grin on my face. Not because of the classic BMW in the photographs. Not because I know how it feels to be in a busy garage or pit lane scrambling to beat the rain onto the track. No, this takes me back to high school when I was editing the shit that my peers tried to pass off as "writing." It amazed me anyone could make it that far through public education with what was obviously a sub-5th grade understanding of the English language.

this car was bought by an indonesian racer back then..he's actually came to europe with a suitcase full of CASH MONEY and bought the CSL CASH!!!...he's the brother of other famous indonesian driver Dolly Indra Nasution

My lord Bryn please don't stop what you're doing. Your articles are astounding, the photography is so emotive! I've got a die cast of this car in 1:18, never thought I'd see some contemporary shots of it! I think you ought to come over to New Zealand for the Festival of Motor Racing and do a similar spotlight on Gary Wilkinson's Zakspeed Escort Group 5... it's also one hell of a car, with a strikingly similar story behind it... see it here http://www.flickr.com/photos/snoozinrichy/sets/72157629213250639/ if you like.

I know what... i just find another info about this car. When Tony mention about this car sitting in the shades for many many years, the place he is talking is my Grandpa workshop named Inremco.

Am in my family event at the moment and we are takking about cars and since inremco is my family business, all my uncle works there and they was national racing and rally drivers at that time.

When i mention about the csl's, all my uncle (3 of them) suddenly say the same thing and they said "offcourse we know that car. It was sitting behind the generator for years next to my Jeep. It was white with blue Bentoel stipes. We always like with that car with wings, it looks nice but it looks home made, hehe.. The car move a year before the workshop move to the new place" =(

We'll at least it answered my curiosity after all this time.

Tony was a good competitor in rally in the 80's and they have a pretty good time at those days.

Thanks for the info, I did a google search and it came up conflicting ways of spelling it. Like I say, if anybody has any info or better still pics of the car in action that would be great! Or even if you can recommend a source.

Thank you Richy, I appreciate your kind words. I've been to NZ a few times to shoot stuff and that Escort is on the list for the next trip. We've got Brad Lord down your way, so feel free to suggest more!